Milestone for Green Award Foundation

On the 4th of July 2012 Green Award reached yet another milestone: the 300th certificate for inland barges was issued.

Mr. Christopher Peeters, who is the alderman of Ghent and the Chairman of the Ghent Port Authority, handed over the 300th certificate to Pascal and Yves Bauwens, owners of the MTS Beringzee (4.204 tonnes). In his speech, Mr. Peeters emphasized that the port of Ghent continues supporting sustainable initiatives for inland shipping.

Last year in June the first three inland barges received Green Award certificates, since then the number of certified vessels has increased a hundredfold. It is a great achievement for the Green Award Foundation.

“But we are not there yet,” the Green Award’s management said. “This is a wonderful result, but we would like to see wider participation of European inland shipping companies. Currently 88% of all the certified inland barges sail under the Dutch flag. We are witnessing an increase in applications from German, Belgian and Luxembourgian ships; therefore, we find it significant that the 300th certified vessel belongs to a Belgian owner and sails under the Luxembourg flag.”

“The handover ceremony of the 300th Green Award certificate being held in our office is not a coincidence, it is completely in line with our strategy for sustainable port,” Mr. Peeters said. “We want to promote environmentally friendly inland shipping. Due to its good connection to the European inland waterways network, the multimodal port of Ghent is an ideal hub for inland barges”.
Ghent is an important inland port with inland navigation traffic of 22.8 million tonnes in 2011.